Is there functionality in Unix that allows for the following:
echo "Some Text" | copy-to-clipboard
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Piotr Dobrogost
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Stefan
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you must mean stdout? – phunehehe Nov 10 '10 at 00:36
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4it really depends on which side of the pipe your standing on :P to the command that sends it to the clipboard, its `stdin`. – Stefan Nov 10 '10 at 04:53
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3People who have used Unix for a long time will tell you it's better to write `
– Mikel Apr 05 '11 at 10:23
8 Answers
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There are a couple tools capable of writing to the clipboard; I use xsel. It takes flags to write to the primary X selection (-p), secondary selection (-s), or clipboard (-b). Passing it -i will tell it to read from stdin, so you want:
$ echo "Some Text" | xsel -i -b
Michael Mrozek
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5Another one is xclip; it accepts from stdin by default. I only use it because it's the first such tool that I learned of. – Shawn J. Goff Nov 09 '10 at 19:04
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I think `-i` is not required in this case: `man xsel` 1.2.0 says: `and the selection is set from standard input if standard input is not a terminal (tty)` – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com Jul 24 '15 at 15:14
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1xsel didn't work for me (I don't know why), but xclip (per other answers) did. – markrian Jan 17 '17 at 15:28
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@MichaelMrozek There is neither a `xsel` nor a `xclip` on RedHat/CentOS7. Do you know of another tool available on CentOS7 ? – SebMa Jul 19 '22 at 12:11
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Using xclip, as @Nicolas suggested, if you want to later paste the contents of the clipboard, such as using Ctrl+V, you can use it this way:
$ echo "Some Text" | xclip -selection clipboard
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4Not trying to revive an old question, but if you're lazy then `echo "Some Text" | xclip -sel c` works too. – anonymoose Jan 28 '19 at 20:39
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12The question is: Which clipboard? Linux X server has 3 (generally, only 2 are used)... xsel uses the PRIMARY clipboard by default.. The PRIMARY clipboard kicks in automatically **every time** you simply select soemthing. You paste if by pressing the center mouse button.. The Ctrl+C / Crtr+V type clipboard is called the CLIPBOARD clipboard :).. so if you want to use the Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V clipboard with 'xsel', the command is: `xsel -ib
– Peter.O Apr 05 '11 at 11:42 -
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works for me on gnome-terminal in ubuntu 10.04 using the xsel in the repo (paste with middle button) – jamespo Apr 05 '11 at 15:42
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On Mac OS X there are the lovely pbcopy and pbpaste commands which are very helpful :)
cwd
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xclip is a good way to go as answered by @Nicolas Raoul but when piping anything containing a newline to the clipboard, such as pwd, the newline is also copied. In some situations it may be desired, but mostly one doesn't want the newline.
The solution is either:
echo -n $(pwd) | xclip -selection clipboard
(the -n removes the newline from the echoed argument)
or:
printf %s $(pwd) | xclip -selection clipboard
The "" around $(pwd) may be required but it works with and without on ubuntu with bash.
calocedrus
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In Wayland, this can be done with wl-clipboard:
$ echo "hello" | wl-copy
Similarly, the clipboard can be returned as follows:
$ wl-paste
hello
ishigoya
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Cygwin (and hence also MSYS2 and Git Bash) has the /dev/clipboard device for accessing the Windows clipboard, so input/output can simply be redirected there.
ak2
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The simplest is probably xclip:
$ echo "Some Text" | xclip
Then paste using your mouse's middle button.
Like xsel, it is usually not installed by default, so you might need to install it (sudo apt-get install xclip on Debian/Ubuntu).
Nicolas Raoul
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2`xclip` requires the `-selection clipboard` option. The default selection per its man page is something else. – Asclepius Oct 09 '14 at 20:03